Richie Giachetti (April 20, 1940 – February 3, 2016) was an American
boxing
Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermined ...
trainer who worked with a number of world
champions including
Larry Holmes and
Mike Tyson
Michael Gerard Tyson (born June 30, 1966) is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1985 to 2005. Nicknamed "Iron Mike" and "Kid Dynamite" in his early career, and later known as "The Baddest Man on the Planet", Tyson is cons ...
.
He was born in
Uniontown, Pennsylvania.
Giachetti first began working in boxing in 1961 and also helped
Don King in his first promotion with
Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali (; born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr.; January 17, 1942 – June 3, 2016) was an American professional boxer and activist. Nicknamed "The Greatest", he is regarded as one of the most significant sports figures of the 20th century, a ...
.
Most famous for guiding Holmes to the heavyweight championship, he trained many other top fighters of the 1970s and 1980s including
Earnie Shavers
Earnie Dee Shaver (August 31, 1944 – September 1, 2022), best known as Earnie Shavers, was an American professional boxer who competed between 1969 and 1995. A two-time world heavyweight championship challenger, he is known as one of the harde ...
,
Aaron Pryor and
Greg Page.
When
Mike Tyson
Michael Gerard Tyson (born June 30, 1966) is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1985 to 2005. Nicknamed "Iron Mike" and "Kid Dynamite" in his early career, and later known as "The Baddest Man on the Planet", Tyson is cons ...
was dethroned as heavyweight champion by
James "Buster" Douglas in 1990 in a 10th-round knockout in
Tokyo
Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...
, King inserted Giachetti as Tyson's trainer. Giachetti trained Tyson for his next four fights, those against
Henry Tillman,
Alex Stewart, and the two fights against
Donovan "Razor" Ruddock. Giachetti later returned to Tyson's corner for his second fight against
Evander Holyfield
Evander Holyfield (born October 19, 1962) is an American former professional boxer who competed between 1984 and 2011. He reigned as the undisputed champion at cruiserweight in the late 1980s and at heavyweight in the early 1990s, and is the on ...
, the infamous
"bite fight".
Giachetti also trained two times world
cruiserweight champion
Jean Marc Mormeck and worked with another top cruiserweight
Steve Cunningham and
Sal Cenicola
Salvatore "Sal" "Rocky" Cenicola III (July 13, 1959 – August 31, 2021) was an American former professional boxer, restaurateur and actor. He holds a record in the ''Guinness Book of World Records'' for the longest interval between professional ...
in the late 1980s.
He worked on several
Sylvester Stallone
Sylvester Enzio Stallone (; born Michael Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone, ) is an American actor and filmmaker. After his beginnings as a struggling actor for a number of years upon arriving to New York City in 1969 and later Hollywood in 1974, h ...
movies and worked with Stallone on boxing promotions in the New York City area. Giachetti died February 3, 2016, at the age of 75 in
Lodi, Ohio
Lodi is a village (United States)#Ohio, village in Harrisville Township, Medina County, Ohio, Harrisville Township, Medina County, Ohio, Medina County, Ohio, United States. It is located southwest of the City of Medina, Ohio, Medina along U.S. Rout ...
.
References
American boxing trainers
American people of Italian descent
1940 births
2016 deaths
People from Uniontown, Pennsylvania
{{Mike Tyson